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American Cuts More Senior Managers

American Airlines’ senior ranks have been culled yet again with the departure of two senior VPs, a move, the airline notes, that reduces its “leadership team” to 10 members, four fewer than it had when parent AMR Corp. filed for Chapter 11 in late November.

The two executives leaving are Peter Dolara, senior VP for Mexico, Caribbean and Latin America (MCLA), and Thomas Del Valle, SVP for airport services and cargo. Both will retire by June 30, says American.

These departures mean a reassignment of duties for some of those senior managers remaining, with SVP-Customer Craig Kreeger adding airport services and operations for MCLA, Europe and Pacific, while Chief Commercial Officer Virasb Vahidi takes on all international sales and marketing by adding Pacific, Mexico, Caribbean and Latin America to his European portfolio.

VP-New York Art Torno is now VP-MCLA, a role that includes Dolara’s airport and operations duties.

“As we review every area of our business to restore American to profitability, growth and industry leadership, key to our mission is an intense focus on our customers. By combining all our customer contact teams into one organization and consolidating our global sales and marketing activities, we will be even better positioned to continue delivering steady improvements in our customers’ experience. These organizational changes represent a significant step forward toward realizing the goals of our business plan,” says CEO Thomas Horton.

AMR plans to reduce labor costs by about 20% as part of its Chapter 11 reorganization. Its unions are currently reviewing term sheets detailing those cuts, and the Allied Pilots Association and the Association of Professional Flight Attendants have opened contract talks with the company.

The company notes that the change to senior management “marks the completion of the first step in the company’s management redesign, which will cascade throughout American’s management organization by the end of summer. During the next phase, the Leadership Team will begin the process of designing their organizations, starting with the management layer that reports directly to them.”

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